Today it is time for some baking, but not of the human variety, it is time to do some baking for my canine friends.
I have introduced you to my other half's dogs before, there are four of them in the household and they are absolutely wonderful. They are also very partial to the odd biscuit or three. Knowing I really wanted to give baking homemade biscuits for them a go, my Mum kindly bought me some bone shaped cutters for christmas, I was very excited to finally get around to using them earlier this week. I think the dogs were excited too!
These biscuits are also incredibly easy to make, it took me maybe an hour with cooking time to make these, so relatively easy to whip up regularly if you would rather give your dogs a treat filled with stuff you can trust.
I spent quite a while looking at recipes on the internet to use, and eventually settled on this one from Sally's Baking Addiction. I have made a few changes to the quantities though to make for a slightly easier to handle dough as Sally described hers as stiff and it didn't seem to rise much, my quantities are listed below.
You will need:
275g Smooth Peanut Butter
200ml Skimmed Milk
1 Large Egg
250g Wholemeal Flour
45g Porridge Oats
1 Heaped Tablespoon Baking Powder
A few strips of Streaky Bacon, or 2 blister packs of pre-cut bacon
Start by frying your bacon, it needs to be cooked low and slow so that the fat renders but it stays flexible and doesn't crumble. Set it aside to cool while you pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius, and start mixing the other ingredients together.
Put your Peanut Butter, Milk, and Egg into a large bowl (It needs to be large so you don't make too much mess) and slowly start to mix it together. You need to be gentle here and don't slosh too much.
Eventually the slop will combine and start to look like thinned Peanut Butter.
Add the Baking Powder and Flour and start to bring together the wet and dry. The mix will take on a doughy consistency and start to come away from the bowl.
Add your oats and cooled bacon slices and use your hands to evenly distribute them through the dough.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and bring it together further. Roll it out to a half inch thickness.
Take your cutters and start chopping out those bones! I ended up with over 30 biscuits after using all the scraps of dough. Place them on a lined baking tray and cook until just brown, this took me 18 minutes, turn them over and cook for a further 12 minutes or until brown on that side as well.
Once cooked, remove from the trays to cool. They should be quite dry and crisp.
Keep them in an airtight container for up to a week, or freeze them for up to two months if you have less canine chums to feed. Needless to say these haven't lasted long (there are only 5 left after a week!) and the dogs absolutely love them so I will be definitely making them again.
Have you tried making your own pet treats before?